


Before the End

by pirategirljack



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-03-23 15:01:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3772642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cole tries to figure out how to proceed</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Cole woke up calling her name again, and the room was still dark, the night was still silent, and he was still alone. In Ramse's room, that he was borrowing.

He'd been here since he went back and saved the man he's called brother who was now all he had left. He wanted to save Cassie, but he'd done all he could for her; when he was awake, that was not exactly comfortable, but he could live with it. When he was asleep, though...when he was asleep, every night, he saw her blurring out of existence in that golden light that was not like the blue-white one that had stranded him here, and he had to face that he had no way of knowing if that choice had been the right one.

The fact that it was the only choice did nothing for his peace of mind.

Cole scrubbed his hands over his face and worked on forcing himself to relax, muscle by muscle, though relaxing wasn't really the problem. Sleeping wasn't either--without the serum in him, he slept harder and deeper than he had before, and needed more sleep, too. But whenever he did sleep, it was the same dream. He put her in the Machine. Something went wrong. He called out for her. He lost her. Again and again and again.

Cole had had enough of sleeping.

He got out of bed and made his way, bare-footed and silent, to the kitchen. Ramse's house was huge, though he claimed it was a lot smaller than the one Olivia had given him thirty years ago. There were ten bedrooms, two floors and an attic and basement, rooms just for eating or just for watching TV or just for books. There were four or five bathrooms; Cole hadn't counted, he just kept finding them, unexpectedly, like he was being haunted by bathtubs.

The kitchen alone was as big as Cassie's whole bookstore, and that had seemed roomy and spacious compared to most of the places he'd lived. 

The house was also well stocked with food, clothes, tools, cars, money, falsified paperwork--everything someone would need if he had to go to ground. He'd been an enemy for thirty years, but Ramse wasn't an idiot; he'd prepared for the chance that the Army would run out of uses for him.

Cole wanted to blend back into the woods, to go off the grid and disappear, but Ramse had been badly hurt, and they did need all this stuff to survive in this time. He guessed.

It had been almost a week. Ramse was starting to look better, but wasn't up and about yet. He hadn't aged or developed splinter-sickness, and he still healed faster than a normal person, though not so fast as Cole had once healed. A few more days and maybe they could hit the road and try to get to work.

The kitchen was dark when Cole reached it, and he didn't bother to turn on a light. The tiles were cool under his feet. Outside, stars shone and a deer moved across the lawn, narrow head down to munch on grass that wasn't maintained anymore but once had been. Time was, he would've stalked and shot that deer and eaten for days. Now, he opened the fridge and had so much choice of food that he almost didn't want any of it. 

He picked an apple and moved over to the window to watch the night rolling by, quiet and dim, just like it was back home.

"Can't sleep, brother?" Came Ramse's voice from the door across the room, his tone low and carefully unthreatening. He lifted his hands to show he was unarmed when Cole swung around, reaching for a gun he didn't have on him. He relaxed and wrapped his arm around his side again when Cole relaxed.

"Don't sleep much anymore."

"Still having nightmares?"

"Yeah."

Ramse moved closer, and stood leaning heavily on the other side of the window frame, close, but out of reach. "You did what you could do."

"I know."

"It's up to Jones now."

"Yeah."

"And still you have nightmares every night."

"Pretty much." He took a bite of his apple; it was cool and juicy and the perfect balance of sweet and sour, and it tasted like ashes and dust now. He ate it anyway; he wasn't so far from his roots that he'd waste food.

Ramse watched the deer stalk through the long grass. Another deer emerged from the shadows, cautious, slim, big eyes looking at the house, big ears flicking back and forth.

"So what now," he said, after a long time.

"I don't know about you, Rams, but I'm not giving up. I'm stuck here, but I still have a mission."

"Still?"

"More than ever."

"You'll need help."

"You offering?"

"Yeah. Yeah I am."

"Why?"

Ramse turned his serious-face on Cole, the one that had always meant business even when they were kids, and his eyes were the same deep dark they'd always been. He was thirty years older now, and that extra experience was there, too, but mostly he was still Ramse. "Cole," he said, "I spent a generation standing off to the side of history, convinced I'd killed my best friend. I'm not going to stand by now that I know I didn't."

"I haven't had that long. It's been only a few weeks for me. Barely that."

"I know. I'm still not letting you go out there alone. You're not dying on my watch again."

Cole wanted to have some sharp words to say to that. Words about that fight they'd had where Ramse had said keeping Cassie alive wasn't the goal. About how keeping him alive was the same thing. He was still mad, the betrayal was still sharp and fresh...But right now, with the quiet and the stars, he was mostly just happy he wasn't alone.

"As soon as you're well enough, then," he said. "We're gonna find out how we can help her. I'm not leaving Cassie there. She doesn't belong there. No one does."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get to work

Ramse isn't the same person he was, and Cole doesn't know what to do with that. But at the same time, he is, and Cole also doesn't know what to do with that. Before all this, Ramse was only a little older than him; now he's lived almost a whole other life since the last time Cole saw him a few weeks ago. He doesn't look older--except for that creepy hand--but he acts it. He talks less. Smiles less. Angers less. He reads more, and moves around like someone from this time, like everything in the world makes sense to him.

Cole still gets surprised by buttons doing what they're supposed to do, by finding yet another channel on the TV, by all the crazy things there are to eat.

By how most people are unarmed and have never eaten a shoe or a dog to keep from starving.

By how most people had never killed someone.

It makes him feel like a freak. And it makes him defensive.

Cassie never made him feel like that. She either explained what he needed to know or gracefully brushed it off as unimportant, and when he did or said something that showed he didn't know something she took for granted, she always looked amused. Like he was cute for not knowing. Cole had never thought of himself as cute before. He thought of himself as dangerous, or capable, or useful. Or he thought of himself as damaged and irredeemable. But not cute.

Ramse looked at him like he was a ghost.

It was another half-week before Ramse was strong enough or capable enough to travel, which meant it was almost two weeks since Cassie had disappeared. Time flowed the same on both ends of the Machine, though when someone popped back made it seem otherwise. She hadn't come back, so it should be two weeks for her, too. Did it feel as long for her as it did for him?

No one had come after them. Cole had expected the Army to send everything they had when he's gone back to save Ramse, he'd dragged his brother faster than either of them really should have been moving just then, and he'd driven recklessly--which, to be fair, was the only way he could drive, since cars were in short supply in the apocalypse and he'd never actually learned to drive. But they'd gotten away without a single hint of opposition, and it made Cole nervous.

"They think I'm dead," Ramse said. "And technically, I am. Ethan Seki died there. They think they know everything and it's going to bite them in the ass."\

"How? How do they know anything?" They were driving again, finally--Ramse was--and Cole had his eyes fixed on the road, the mirror, the sky, anything but his brother, but he still caught Ramse's glance his way before answering.

"I don't know for sure, but I've pieced together that they have other people like me in their organization." 

"Like you? Time travelers? Or lunatics?"

"Yeah. I deserve that. But I meant Travelers. That's what they called me, how they welcomed me. At least one, who's been around a long time and knows a lot; maybe more. Maybe a lot more."

"How?"

"I don't know."

"Lotta good you're being."

"They kept me separate from this stuff. They said it was to allow me to focus on what I knew so I could be effective--an effective informant, they meant. And I think it was so I wouldn't ever know so much that I'd be a real threat to them."

"But...?"

"But you know how nosy I am."

Cole almost smiled at that. "Even after all these years, old man?"

"More so."

"So what? You know things they don't think you know?"

"Some things."

"You gonna share?"

"All in good time. We have some stops to make first, some preparations to make."

Cole looked at him directly, then, but couldn't catch his eye. They were always looking different ways now. "That wasn't our agreement."

"We can't wing it anymore, brother. We have to have plans."

"Everyone wants a plan."

"Because everyone we're up against has one. And a backup plan. And a backup for that."

"I hate this. Just find me someone to punch and point me in their direction."

"I'm afraid we're past that now."

Cole made some noncommittal noise, and looked back out the window. He knew this didn't really affect Cassie much; time travel bought time as much as anything, and however long it took, they could still get back to her around the time she left, but...

But every minute she was away, every minute he didn't know what happened to her, was a minute that did its best to kill him. It was like a piece of shrapnel, sharp and dangerous, sitting under his ribs.

"We'll find a way back, brother. You're not the only one that wants to get home."

"That's not my home," Cole said, "not anymore. She's my home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to come after an update to Cassie's story, but this is the one that came out first.
> 
> \--  
> My mailing list is here: http://eepurl.com/bjHU3T


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I swear I posted this already, but I guess not, so here it is...

Cole woke in the front seat of a car that wasn't Cassie's and for a moment he had trouble separating his dreams from reality. He dreamed she'd told him about hooded figures who wanted her dead, that he'd kissed her. But here he was, crumpled up in his seat, light barely streaking the sky with chilly grey, not yet dawn. And they were still driving.

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere north of New York. We're almost there."

"Where?"

"Where this all started. For me, anyway."

"Look, I'm a little fuzzy on geography, but I know Japan isn't north of New York."

"Not Japan. Tat was an end. This is where Ethan Seki was born and this weird new chapter started."

"We're just going to roll up on it and prove you're alive?"

Ramse glanced at him and quirked an almost smile. He wanted to be annoyed that Ramse seemed to think he was funny now, but he couldn't muster it. Mostly it looked like he was glad to have him back, and even with his grudge, that was a good thing. He'd almost died from that stab wound, would have if Jones hadn't thought fast--or remembered her history correctly--but Ramse had thought he was dead. For thirty years. And he'd still gone through with all this road blocking.  
Cole wanted to forgive him, and he was glad that Ramse was there, but he wasn't ready to forgive yet. Not yet.

"The place is only occupied when something important happens; it should be abandoned now. But there's things there we need."

"What things?"

"Information, mostly. And a few useful items we can maybe use against them, if we need to."

"How long?"

"Another hour or two."

Cole folded his arms around himself because it was chilly as he was defensive, and watched the sky turning deep purple, then pink and orange. And he tried not to think about his dream of Cassie, and totally failed at that. It was a dream. Obviously. But it had felt like she was actually with him, like his hands were really in her hair, like his lips were really on hers. And if that was true, then so was her news about the hooded men--and her leaving the facility. 

Cassie wasn't immune. He'd held her as that was proven. She couldn't die when he wasn't there to hold her--when he wasn't able to fix it.

They arrived at the front of a white mansion that looked like a museum or a bank more than a place people lived, and Ramse was right. The shutters were closed and the lights were all off. It was, oddly, comforting to Cole; it made everything look more like a world that made sense to him. In this time, everything was noisy and lit up and full of people; he missed the quiet.

There wasn't much else he missed about the future.

Except Cassie.

Ramse had a key and knew the security code, and he let them in quickly, and closed the door up again.

"What is this place?" Cole asked.

"A sort of...I guess it's a ritual space. Where new members are inducted, and where I did a lot of my work."

"Your work. Is that what you call it." Bitterness filled his voice and his mouth, almost choking him, and the new scar where he'd been stabbed by that creepy hand burned.

"It was my work," Ramse said, his voice mild and distant, his eyes focused somewhere off in the distance. Not on Cole. "It's not now. Come on."

Coming on was the last thing Cole wanted, but the second last thing was to let Ramse out of his sight, so he followed.

But he made sure his gun was close to hand, and that he had a good view in all directions.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole gets annoyed and Ramse starts being himself again

He didn't need to be cautious, it turned out, since the huge place was abandoned anyway, but Cole stayed on alert anyway. He had lived too long with constant threats to start relaxing now, and without the serum it was already harder to focus, easier to miss details, so he was less inclined to relax than ever. The only time he could ever remember feeling anything that might count as "relaxed" was early on in his mission with Cassie, when they were dancing. Ever since Chechnya, all they had was more stress.

"What're we here for?" Cole asked after they'd walked through half a dozen halls and rooms without stopping.

"Olivia keeps stuff here. Stuff she doesn't think anyone knows about."

"Stuff."

"Artifacts, mostly. In there."

Ramse pushed open a set of double doors. Inside was a row of twelve bassinets, like the ones Cole had seen in hospitals they raided for supplies. They were empty, tidy; if someone had needed twelve hospital-like baby beds before, they didn't need them now. But here, lined up so neatly in the middle of what otherwise was a very adult space--an office or library--they creeped him out.

Ramse kept going, through the creepy baby office, to another door at the back.

This one was definitely an office. There was a wall of books directly across from the door, with a desk as big as the hotel room bed in front of it, and cabinets on the side walls. Ramse went left, pulled out a key from his pocket, and opened the cabinet there. Inside was all sorts of weird old things, but Ramse only took three--a fancy box, a metal bowl, and a spoon that looked as old as the world.

Cole, meanwhile, poked around in drawers and on shelves, looking for any sort of information he could use. He was more than restless, sitting around in fancy rooms, waiting. If they weren't going to be on the offensive, he was at least going to try connecting details and figuring out their next target.

Like Jones had in 2043.

Like Cassie had here.

"There's nothing here," he said, when yet another drawer held meticulously organized office supplies and not a single other item that might be of use. "This place looks about as lived in as a TV set."

Ramse raised his eyebrows as he carefully put his artifacts in a bag and three the strap over his shoulder. "Look at you, talking about sets and other modern things."  
"What else am I gonna do but watch tv? We aren't doing anything!"

"We are, brother. We're just doing it carefully."

"And meanwhile, the Army can do whatever the hell they want."

"That's the plan."

"Oh, we have a plan now? Nice of you to share."

Ramse closed the bag, closed the cabinet, and laid the key in the middle of the desk, then came around it to look Cole in the eye. "The time for smash and grab stuff is past, Cole. They think we're gone and dead; we need to let them get cocky, make mistakes--and then come at them with their own tactics."

"That's bullshit."

"That's the plan."

"It a shitty plan."

"Oh, you're King of Plans now? Mr There's No Time For Plans knows better?"

"I know that time is limited and we're wasting it with all this sitting around and creeping through mansions. We have to--we have to find a way--" his voice faltered because he didn't know what words he was trying to say. The ones about stopping the Army were all tangled up with the ones about saving Cassie, and he knew he didn't know enough about either problem to say anything anyway.

"I know, brother. It's hard. But we have to do it this way. I won't ask you to trust me yet, but can you understand that I've been here for thirty years, doing just this? That I know what I'm doing?"

Cole hesitated long enough to make a point, then nodded, once. "For now," he said.

"Now is all we have."

Ramse led the way back out of the house, but along a different route. This one led out into a garden with trees and shrubs cut into unnaturally smooth-edged shapes, a pool of water, something built up in the middle of it. All the leaves in the middle were red, more red than fall leaves or special ornamental plants ever were.

"What is this place?"

"This is where they made me one of them."

Ramse stood and stared at the walls, the walkways; Cole stared at the red leaves. They were reminding him o something he couldn't quite grasp--something about how Cassie in 2017 had said he'd find the red forest, something about what he'd seen when Deacon drugged him with that weird powder. But it was muddled, all of it, and just out of his reach. 

Ramse pulled a brick up from the edging around a bunch of rose bushes and threw it toward the raised dais thing in the middle of the water. It didn't go that far, but it disrupted the perfect symmetry of the place just a little, the hole in the edging like a lost tooth, the brick a dark spot on the bottom of the pool.

"Lets go," he said, and Ramse's voice was much more like the warrior Cole had always known. It was a comfort, and he didn't argue, just took his position at Ramse's side like he always had.


	5. Progress?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole and Ramse might finally be getting somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, guys.

Cole wanted to dream of Cassie, but he hadn't seen her in his sleep any more than he'd seen her in waking, and now he was back to not sleeping at all.

  


It was night again. He was awake while everyone else slept again. He was thinking, still, about whether he'd made the best call when he sent Cassie to the future. He wasn't any closer to making a decision one way or the other, but every day, every time he looped over those memories again, he missed her more. It was a physical thing, missing like this, a tight, hard ache in his chest. He rubbed at the pain, different than the pain of Splintering sickness, remembered how it had felt when Cassie woke him with a hand on the chest, and stopped. Rubbing at it didn't help the ache anyway.

  


They were in a suite at some fancy hotel, a room for Cole and a room for Ramse, with another too-large living area between them. Much nicer than the little motels he'd lived in with Cassie leading up to all this, but also with less character. This place looked like every hotel on TV. Cole gave up on sleeping and went into the living room, figuring he'd find something to watch, maybe scan the news for something useful, and found Ramse sitting on the couch. He had his elbows propped on his shoulders, a frown that took over his whole face, and he was staring at the box he'd taken from the mansion. It was open, but all it contained was a weird powder of crumpled leaves.

  


A powder Cole knew. It smelled herbal and bitter, like dirt and like ash and like things that grow in the dark. Just the scent of it made his head swim, and half-seen flashes of red trees and strange faces wobbled through his mind.

  


He didn't like it. It made him feel outside himself.

  


"What is this crap anyway?"

  


"It's their communications. The way they talk to the Witness."

  


"We thought you were the Witness."

  


"I got that. I'm not."

  


"So who is?" Cole took a seat near the sliding door to the balcony, and nudged the door open a little to let fresh air in.

  


"I never met the guy." Ramse closed the box and sat back, but the frown was still there. "No one ever spoke of him directly, even to me. He's always somewhere else, handing down missions and goals and messages. Asshole. But I saw Olivia once. She made a tea of this stuff and went into a crazy trance, and when she came to, she had messages."

  


Cole's stomach sank into what felt like an icy pool. "So there's no Witness? It's all her and this--this drug?"

  


"No, the Witness is real. He's just...stuck, I guess you could say. Somewhere where you have to be out of your mind to reach him."

  


"That's crazy."

  


Ramse traded the frown for a sardonic raised eyebrow. "You almost died from dangerous, untested time travel, and you say this is crazy?"

  


"There's got to be limits, man. It was never supposed to be this complicated. This--tangled."

  


"You're worrying again."

  


"I'm good at it."

  


"And it doesn't get you anywhere. Either she made it and she'll find a way back, or she didn't and you did everything you could for her."

  


Cole looked away, out into the night full of lights. The future only had stars and campfires, and he never thought he'd get used to cities. "Did I?"

  


"You did."

  


"I should have left her somewhere safe. I should have--they did something to her, when they kidnapped her. I didn't see it until something messed with her. She never would have shot you if they hadn't."

  


Ramse looked more skeptical than Cole had ever seen him--or anyone--look. "You sure about that?"

  


He wanted to say something sharp and violent, something about how until very recently, Ramse was on the same side as the people who did this to her, how he felt like he barely knew Ramse at all anymore, despite how he looked the same. It confused him and scared him and more than anything, it made him so mad he almost constantly wanted to punch things. But violence had never gotten him anywhere with Ramse, and this whole other life he'd led had only made him better at talking and making sense even when what he was talking about didn't make sense at all. "What do you know?" He said instead, though even to himself, it sounded more like a threat than a request.

  


"Cassie was supposed to die then," Ramse said, his voice low and controlled. It wasn't the first time he'd talked about his other life, but it was the first time there were specifics. "Olivia wanted to know what she knew--she was hoping for something, she thought Cassie might be the one."

  


"The one what?"

  


"She wouldn't say. The woman talks in riddles. But it wasn't Cassie and so Cassie was supposed to die. You change that."

  


"I had to. You know that."

  


"I did know it. Then. I was just glad to have you back, and with a good story."

  


Cole scoffed, and got up to pace around the room, messing with stuff they didn't own, biting his nails. "Yeah, a good story."

  


"The second time around, when I was on the other side? I didn't stop you on purpose. I didn't tell them about your detour."

  


Cole stopped. Turned. "Why?"

  


"Because you're my brother. And she's your heart. I saw that haunted look when you came back. I saw how much losing her cost you. I wasn't going to willingly do tat to you, not after I'd--"

  


"Killed me?"

  


"Thought I killed you. I owed you a little happiness."

  


For a long moment, Cole had nothing to say. It was like finding out Ramse was behind everything all along--but in reverse. He was behind it all, but he wasn't always against them.

  


"I was adamant that neither of you get hurt. You were dying anyway, then dead, as far as I knew. They didn't kill you the first time, I wasn't going to let them kill you the second time. Things needed to stay."

  


"No," Cole said, pausing a long time again while he raised one hand, just one finger, and pointed right in Ramse's face. "They didn't. Everything we did was pointless because you blocked us. We were saving the world."

  


"You were saving each other," Ramse replied, but there was no anger or blame in his voice, not this time. It was just a fact. "And as all of us."

  


The question loomed up on Cole again, but did I save her? He started pacing again. "All of this, everything, is ridiculous. We never should have started."

  


"Do you really think that?"

  


"Not a chance."

  


And that time when their eyes met, indirectly from both of them, for just a second, they were like old times, brothers on the same page, and they both laughed. Cole came around and say on the couch, on the other end from Ramse but on the same piece of furniture, and they both studied the stolen box.

  


"What do we do with this piece of junk, then?"

  


"They'll notice it's missing soon. And they'll guess who took it."

  


"That's our advantage blown, then."

  


"Surprise is only an advantage once. They won't risk this getting lost or damaged. Right now, we've got the upper hand and we can keep them from messing more stuff up. We can find out what they think they know."

  


"And then we can really accomplish something."

  


"Exactly."

  


Cole opened his mouth to say something more, but he was cut off by a mechanical chirp, and Ramse pulled a cellphone Cole hadn't known he had from his inside pocket, and laid it on the table. He put it down like it was potentially dangerous, and lined up the side exactly parallel to the edge of the box, but six inches apart. 

  
Cole saw what the message said. "What have you done?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things take a turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Ohgress asked for it and I actually did have it written already and forgot about it.
> 
> Ps: I'm posting this on my phone so forgive mistakes; I'll fix em later...

\---  
"What does that mean?"

"It means we're on."

"On? On for what?" Cole paused--and his heart sank into the bottom of his stomach. "What have you gotten us into?"

Ramse was already shoving stuff into a bag again, leaving the room as untouched as it had been when they arrived. "You want to get Cassie back, right?"

"Of course I do."

"I'm just pushing the issue a little."

"I don't like this."

"You don't like any plan. But we can't shoot from the hip with these people."

Cole pressed his lips together over whatever stupid thing his gut almost made him say. This plan reeked of Bad Idea, but he couldn't deny that Ramse knew the Army much, much better than he did. And Ramse was right about how he felt about plans. He'd had a long life in a world where long lives were not common, and the instincts that had kept him alive told him that plans were mostly made to go wrong. Figure it out as you go, that's what works. Keeps you lose and adaptable.

But here, things worked differently. More differently than he'd known, when he had Cassie smoothing the way for him between his visits. He'd been too young last time he'd had to live permanently in this year, to know any of this stuff, and he didn't remember enough of it now to be of much use. And he'd never thought about all this slow stuff between the visits; weeks of waiting and looking for things that weren't there and sitting on his thumbs like an asshole. So his instincts screamed at him every day that everything he was doing was wrong, that this wasn't the way, but he pushed it back.

Cole had never doubted his ability to function like this before.

He didn't like it. And the longer it went on, the more he didn't like it.

On the other hand, he also had a long life of Ramse taking care of him, and even with the current gap between them, a whole other lifetime that Ramse had led without him, he found it hard not to trust that his brother had his best interests at heart. There were plenty of times when they were growing up when he didn't know what Ramse was talking about and trusted him anyway...this might be another of those times

He hoped it was.

Cole went to pack up his few belongings, most of which were guns. Guns, and one small thing that had belonged to Cassie--he'd found her necklace tangled in the buttons of his coat the first time he cleaned it after she was gone, and he kept it in his pocket now. He should have taken more pictures of her when she was here. He should have asked her how to do that.

Ramse called someone and stepped out on the balcony. Cole allowed himself to drift toward the sliding doors while pretending to check the room for lost items, and did his best to overhear without looking like that's what he was doing. He knew he wasn't subtle; but he also knew, now that he knew Cassie, that he wasn't just a savage. Maybe some of her grace had rubbed off on him.

God, he missed her. The first thing he wanted to do when she got back was take a hundred pictures of her. Well, not the first thing...

"We'll need codes," Ramse was saying. "She revoked my access when she thought I was dead, and now she knows I'm not, she'll definitely block my old codes."

\---  
They're at some junky space under a highway, some nameless unused space in the city, where neither side has an advantage. It's a wreck, the detritus of civilization all over the place, not many cars rumbling over them. It weirdly makes Cole feel at home, and for just a moment, he feels like he's close to Cassie, and it almost knocks the wind out of him.

Ramse is standing a little ahead of him, and Cole shifts his grip on his gun as a long, shiny black car pulls up in front of them. A woman Cole has only seen in passing steps out, and Cole hates her on sight. She's frowning, and her eyes look murderous, and she's the one who kidnapped, tortured and killed Cassie. He came back and saved her before they for that far, but the fact remained that they did and it ruined everything. Cassie never wanted to talk about it, but he knew it haunted her. The same way she knew how sick he was.

"Traveller." She said, her voice low and silky and vicious. "Return what you have stolen."

"Or what?"

"Or I will end you."

"Well now," Ramse says, and it's his old voice, the one Cole has heard a hundred times when things were bad and he was talking his way out of it, "if you do that, who'll tell you where I put your little treasure?"

The woman looks shocked for just a fraction of a second, but both other saw it. 

"You didn't think we'd be stupid enough to just bring it with us, did you?"

"I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to still be alive. You died that day. How are you still here?"

She was keeping her voice steady, but Cole heard the sound behind it, of panic and strained belief. He knows, all at once, that they've succeeded--whatever happens now, however much he has doubted himself and the mission and their actions, they've done this: they've kicked her understanding in the teeth.

"There are things stronger than fate, Olivia," Ramse says, "and what you had isn't fate anyway. It's manipulation. Your Witness has been using you."

It's like he slapped her, and she rears back. Cole brings his gun up. 

"You know nothing."

"I know more than you think."

"No. You really don't."

"Really? Because you never once gave me a straight answer, from the moment you wrote that letter to me in jail? Well, you underestimated me. I'm not a pawn, and I'm not an idiot."

Cole wants to look at his brother and see what his face looks like. This was new information to him. But he needs to focus, and focusing is harder without the serum. He resituates his gun, leveling it on the space between the woman's perfect eyebrows.

"What do you know?"

"Like I'm going to tell you."

"You will!"

"I sure as hell won't."

The woman--Olivia--is coming unhinged, Cole can see it, and he readies a shot--

And someone else gets out of the car. "Oh blah blah blah, this isn't getting us anywhere! Can't we all just get along?"

"Jennifer," Cole says, and he's shocked enough that he almost drops his gun, and definitely loses his shot, both from his wobbling aim and from Jennifer stepping between them. She looks as good as he did the day they met her at Markeridge, her hair sleek, her makeup clean and sharp, not a single wrinkle in her dress. But she's smiling like a wolf in winter, and that's not like her at all.

"Hello, Otter Eyes. We've got some things to talk about."

"We sure as hell don't," he says, but before Jennifer can say anything, there's a weird wobble in the air before them, an stabs of light jitter out of it. Light that he knows all too well, and that make the piles of crap around them look older, newer, stranger. A shape forms in it, dark against the bright, skipping like a bad recording, garbled and senseless and indistinct.

But the women know exactly what it is. Jennifer throws herself to the ground and covers her head, talking too fast for Cole to make out. Cole jumps infront of Ramse. and Olivia walks towards the distortion as if she's being pulled, her eyes dazed and fixed too wide open, nodding jerkily as if she's receiving instructions.

Cole hears one word. "Father."

And then the distortion is gone, and Olivia drags Jennifer to her feet, drags her into the car, and they tear off as if Cole and Ranse aren't even there.

"What the fucking hell was that?" Cole demands, his eyes still dazzled and everything around him feeling like it's ringing, like a struck bell. 

"I think we just met the Witness."


	7. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunited!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where Before the End merges with After the End!

The air was still a little wobbly, but it was fading fast, and Ramse was already heading back to the car. 

“What do you mean that was the Witness?” Cole said, his feet rooted to the spot. “I thought the Witness was a person? Probably a time traveler?”

Ramse halted, and came back around the car. “He probably is--or at least, he probably was. Olivia doesn’t talk about him, she just brings messages from her meetings. Usually by way of that drug I stole, but apparently he can make contact in a big flashy pyrotechnic way, too.” He paused, and sent a sour look to where the air had so recently defied physics. “Overdoing it, if you ask me.”

“He was a person? He’s not now?”

“As far as I can tell,” Ramse said, resuming his trip back to the driver’s side, “he’s stuck between times, or out of time, or in some other sort of time that isn’t like ours. He can only get through in certain situations. I hope this show tonight cost him.”

“Jennifer looked terrified.” Cole never quite knew what to make of Jennifer, but he felt almost--protective of her? Maybe similar to her. She was way more unhinged than he was, but they’d both seen things no one should have seen, and they were both important parts of this puzzle. He didn’t like anyone treating her badly.

“The Witness is a terrifying thing. Wherever he came from and whatever he’s here for.”

“Didn’t even look at us.”

“That we can tell. Come on, things have gone sideways, and we’ve got a short time to figure out how to hit them while they’re off balance.”

Cole got into the car and was almost buckled in when something popped into existence right in the middle of the headlamps. Something small, with pale white hands and long blonde hair.

The seatbelt snapped back out of his suddenly numb fingers and he was out of the car and saying her name before his brain even had a chance to make sense of the things right before his eyes. “Cass.”

She looked up at him, and he knew the particular sort of dazed pain in her eyes. Splintering. But what mattered was that Cassie was back, that she wasn’t bleeding, that she was standing on her own two feet and was rushing toward him. He hadn’t found a way to try to save her yet, and she hadn’t needed it anyway--that was his Cass.

Cole met her half way, and when she threw her arms around his neck, he squeezed her so tight that he had to loosen up a little sooner than he’d wanted to in case she couldn’t breathe. He almost couldn’t, with the sharp pain of reunion in his heart.

“You’re still alive,” he said into her shoulder, instead of the seven thousand other things he could have said. He pushed back her hair to get a better look at her. She was frighteningly thin and he wondered what had happened to her, how badly his time had abused her. There were circles around her eyes, and two or three scars on her face. Her hands were a mess. But her smile was radiant, and for the moment, he didn’t care about any of that. All that mattered was that she was here, now, with him, and she was alive.

And then she kissed him. 

And he kissed her back, without a single hint of hesitation, because he’d been about to do the same. He hadn’t kissed her before she left, before he send her away, and it was probably the dumbest thing he’d done in a life full of stupid choices.

He dragged her closer, buried his hands in her tangled blonde hair. Her hands were in his hair, too, and she was pulling at his shoulders and his lapels, her body half inside his coat, trying to merge with him.

If this is what heaven was like, maybe he would have been more religious his whole life.

Ramse said something about not missing this chance. He didn’t care. All he saw in the whole world was Cassie.

“You’re wearing my jacket,” Cole said.

“Yeah. It’s cold there.”

“It’s cold here. Come on. Ramse wasn’t lying; this is kind of an important moment.”

“How long has it been here?”

Cole didn’t have to think about it. It was like an endless counter in his head since the moment he pulled that lever and sent her away. “Eight weeks, three days, nine hours. For you?”

“Five months, ten days and fifteen hours.”

“Timey wimey,” Cole said before he could think about it, and Cassie laughed out loud. All the frozen edges in his heart thawed at once.

“You’ve been watching TV,”

Cole smiled and pushed his cheek to hers again, and sighed as all the muscles in his back and neck relaxed. She was home. She tightened her arms around him. “There’s a lot of downtime when you’re not jumping straight to the important parts.”

“This is what I’ve been saying,” she said, and she smiled at him again. He wanted to kiss her forever when she smiled at him.

“You’re really okay? You didn’t get--you didn’t get sick…?”

“No, not even once.”

He ran his fingers over the fading scars on her chin, and settled on one that looked like a nasty split lip. The kind that came from a hard punch. “But they hurt you.” Jones wouldn’t have; he could only think of one person who would beat on a woman like this, and he promised himself that if he ever made it back to 2043, he’s slam Deacon’s head into a wall until one or the other was shattered.

“That’s over now. I’m home.”

“We both are.”

Ramse stuck his head out the window again, “And we’d better get home before something drastic happens and we lose this edge we just gained.”

“Edge?”

Cole smiled, and led her by both hands to the back seat of the car. He wasn’t going to let go of her ever again.

“Lord,” Ramse said, and rolled his eyes, but Cole knew that it was all a show, “now I’m your freaking taxi driver.”

“A lot has happened since I last saw you,” Cole said as he helped her up into the back seat. “Let’s get you caught up.”

**Author's Note:**

> This happens at the same time as After the End, basically. You can read them at the same time or separate, and eventually, they'll come together.
> 
> \--  
> My mailing list: http://eepurl.com/bjHU3T


End file.
